IF you want to find out more about the local history of Kintyre or post some interesting stories then here is the place! All contributors welcome! You can also check out the Historic Kintyre and Down Memory Lane websites.

I have asked loads of people about this over the years, and just about everyone starts the story with '' I was just coming out of the pictures when I saw the plane dropping its bomb and I dived under a lorry to hide'' that lorry must have been enormous....

There were two attacks on campbeltown during ww2 If my memory of my history class serves me correctly. one which dropped bombs along at the trench point and one which dropped bombs in the town centre. The bomb that hit the royal was intende for the navy boats in the harbour but missed. The plane then strafed kinloch loch road with machine gun fire killing one person. My history teacher told me that you can stilll see the marks off the bullets on the facade of the old warehouse a the end of kinloch street and there are marks there but whether they are from machine gun fire or not I don't know! There was also a german spy caught in the town during WW2.

I believe the attack along the trench point dropped a landmine which destroyed a house there, the bomb which hit the Royal apparently bounced off the quay and exploded in the hotel. There are still bullet holes visable on the Main St side of the Royal as well. Didnt know anything about the spy captured in the town though, anyone else heard anything about this.

gizmo wrote:I believe the attack along the trench point dropped a landmine which destroyed a house there, the bomb which hit the Royal apparently bounced off the quay and exploded in the hotel. There are still bullet holes visable on the Main St side of the Royal as well. Didnt know anything about the spy captured in the town though, anyone else heard anything about this.

Captured after stealing a rowing boat in Southend, trying to make his way to Ireland, the story's in one of Angus MacVicar's books.

Read recently that the writer Hamish Henderson who washicking in Kintyre at the time was apprehended by thepolice under suspicion of being the spy.Also the Argyll hotel in Belochantuy was hit by Germanbomber cannon fire just prior to the attack on the town.Its thought that the aircrew fired a burst of roundsas practise to make sure the cannon was functioning.

bill wrote:Was reading "the secret Scotland site" and was surprised to find that there was five fatalities during the bombing of The Royal Hotel.............................

"On November 6, 1940, bombing resulted in serious damage to the town's Royal Hotel and Victoria Hall. Two casualties have been reported: Alexander Blue, a lorry driver, was killed in the raid, and Thomas Hunter, an agricultural adviser, died in hospital the following day.

Naval fatalities of the November 6 raidUnreported at the time, it has been found by others that three ordinary seamen posted to HMS Nimrod also lost their lives during the Campbeltown raid:

Richard Howard CooksonMichael HolmesHarry Fitton

The journal of the medical officer recorded the circumstances of the men's deaths as follows:These three rating were in company just outside the Victoria Hall on 6.11.1940 when a 500 lb aerial bomb was dropped close beside them from a low altitude. All were killed instantaneously. Their injuries were severe. one had most of his cranium blown away and the other two had both lower limbs blown off."

I posted this some time back on another thread on the same subject.

I know my Summer'll never comeI know I'll cry until my dying day has comeLet the Winter roll alongI've got nothing left but song